This is a rip-snorting, barrel-riding adventure movie — perfect for all ages, as they say (though it isn’t for very young kids) — loaded with fast-paced fight scenes, great-looking effects and enjoyable and/or scurrilous supporting characters.

By the time the beast spreads his wings to full span, soaring skyward toward a vaguely Spielbergian moon, you’re in the kind of breathless awe that so few current cinematic superproductions are able to provide.

Sure, all the studios offer anymore are big, dumb adventure spectacles, but that's not a knock against the achievement of this one, which at least parades wonders before us, not the least being the greatest dragon in the history of movies.

The Desolation of Smaug is a cheerfully entertaining and exhilarating adventure tale, a supercharged Saturday morning picture: it's mysterious and strange and yet Jackson also effortlessly conjures up that genial quality that distinguishes The Hobbit from the more solemn Rings stories.

The best of The Desolation of Smaug is saved for the last, when Bilbo goes to steal from the massive fire-breathing dragon, Smaug. The orange-eyed beast is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, who, through a sludge of voice-altering electronics, seethes and preens between fiery exhalations; this scene is one of the few occasions in the film where anyone actually takes time to talk.

My advice to "Hobbit" fans is not only to see this one, but to see it as I did, in 3-D projected at the normal rate of 24 frames per second. The film will also be shown in what's called High Frame Rate 3-D, at 48 frames a second, but that made the last installment look more like video than a regular movie. Smaug is scary enough without a turbo boost.

After exhibiting an almost craven fidelity to his source material the first time out, Jackson gets the drama in gear here from the outset with a sense of storytelling that possesses palpable energy and purpose.

Some of the dwarves have nice individual moments, namely Balin (Ken Stott), Bofur (James Nesbitt), and Kili (Aidan Turner), and Gandalf gets to throw some potent magic around at Dol Guldur. But other than that (and the dragon itself), The Desolation of Smaug turns to be more of too much of a good thing.

This Hobbit is, in other words, a much more eventful affair than its year-old predecessor. And yet for all the fine spectacle Jackson crams into his lengthy sequel-within-a-prequel, it’s still hard not to mourn the single, self-contained movie that could have been.

There are things to like about the second Hobbit film - the director's vision of Middle Earth is as beguiling as ever - but the bloating that was a problem with An Unexpected Journey is an even bigger issue here.

There are, once again, too many busy, uninterestingly staged battles that lean heavily on obvious, sometimes distracting digital sorcery. But there are also pacific, brooding interludes in which the actors — notably Mr. Freeman, an intensely appealing screen presence — remind you that there’s more to Middle-earth than clamor and struggle.

Much of the bloat is still there, but The Desolation of Smaug, the second film in the Hobbit trilogy, is a real improvement – filled with inventive action set pieces and dramatic face-offs that we (finally, at long last, hallelujah!) care about.

It’s hard to fight the feeling that The Hobbit simply isn’t an epic story, and the efforts to expand it into one leave it feeling like an anvil crammed into a sock: The sock is taking on some weird shapes, and it’s being stretched awfully thin.

The cast, including Orlando Bloom and Evangeline Lilly as warrior elves, is also excellent (though we don’t get even a glimpse of Andy Serkis’ Gollum). And individually, each escapade does hold its own thrills.

The Peter Jackson-directed Hobbit sequel might be the more vigorous, action-packed, darker and more (superficially) engaging version of the series thus far, but that doesn’t actually mean it’s a keeper of any sort.

The second leg of Peter Jackson’s three-part adaptation of The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien, is mostly stalling for time: two or three truly great sequences tangled up in long beards and longer pit-stops.

There are probably enough moments to satisfy hard-core fans, but for the rest of us, this amounts to the Middle Earth equivalent of “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones,’’ a space-holding, empty-headed epic filled with characters and places (digital and otherwise) that are hard to keep straight, much less care about.

Enjoyed it thoroughly. Much better than the first one, it's not as action based as the LOTR series but that's not a bad thing. It sets its ownEnjoyed it thoroughly. Much better than the first one, it's not as action based as the LOTR series but that's not a bad thing. It sets its own pace and is more "adventurey". Makes me laugh where needed and was just a ton of fun to go for at launch night.…Full Review »

"Decent fantasy-action slightly inspired by The Hobbit"
Most reviews will tell you what's so great about this movie and why it's worth"Decent fantasy-action slightly inspired by The Hobbit"
Most reviews will tell you what's so great about this movie and why it's worth watching, but I figured you should hear the other side of the story.

First of all a small note for Tolkien fans. If you thought An Unexpected Journey strayed a bit too far from the book: The Desolation of Smaug looks like the script writers didn't even know there was a book. The movie tries hard to change the story wherever it can, reducing fan-favorite chapters to 5 minute scenes and writing new content that feels out of place.

But it's not only bad if you've read the book. I really wonder what the target audience is, because it feels like it's written for 15 year old boys. There are random action scenes every 10 minutes and 'funny' decapitations every 30. The worst thing here is that the action comes at the cost of character development. You have a band of 13 Dwarfs and a Hobbit, yet you rarely see them interact.

Now I like Elves more than Dwarfs, so I didn't mind seeing so much of them in this movie. But having them show up in every place to save the day feels wrong. Perhaps Peter Jackson thought his cast of Dwarfs wasn't good enough to create an enjoyable movie? Gandalf's scenes in Dol Guldur were an interesting addition in concept, but they are just too slow. I feel his scenes mostly serve as an attempt to raise The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings' level of epicness. And that just doesn't work.

The story is full of illogicalities. How does entering the mountain to steal the Arkenstone to unite the Dwarfs to kill the Dragon to enter the mountain work exactly?? And remember that heartwarming last scene of An Unexpected Journey, where Thorin finally accepts Bilbo? Well, that's all gone again. Even though he keeps outsmarting all the Dwarfs, Bilbo is back to being an unappreciated 5th wheel of the party. And did the writers really think viewers would be so desperate for a love story that they'd enjoy an Elf and a Dwarf flirting it up? Their scenes feel forced and are painful to watch.

Martin Freeman's acting is top notch again, but sadly he hardly gets any screen time. He only shines in his scene with Smaug. Now Smaug as a character is awesome, no complaints there. Yet most of his scenes are way too dragged out. There's a 20 minute scene with the Dwarfs running around thinking they can defeat him. Only at that point the movie already hinted at the only possible way of defeating him. Perhaps the worst aspect is that these scenes make Smaug look like an unintelligent creature. Dwarfs luring a Dragon around by going "Nana-nanana you can't catch me!" is not only silly and cliché, it's an insult to Smaug's character.

Final complaint: the whole movie builds up to a scene.... that's apparently going to be the opening scene of movie 3. Nobody in the cinema was sure if the movie had ended, or there was just an awkwardly long pause when the screen went black.

A movie like this you'll want to see, no matter how good or bad it is. You can't miss out on such a huge release, especially when it looks gorgeous in HFR 3D. But where I watched each Lord of the Rings movie 3 times in cinema, watching The Desolation of Smaug just once was enough for me.

In the end, most problems of the movie seem to stem from the decision to turn the cute Hobbit tale into three epic movies that have to live up to the Lord of the Rings hype. It doesn't work.…Full Review »

I went into The Desolation of Smaug with low expectations and managed to be disappointed. Like many, I love The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, butI went into The Desolation of Smaug with low expectations and managed to be disappointed. Like many, I love The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but the prequel trilogy has yet to impress.

That’s not entirely true. Peter Jackson’s cameo made me laugh out loud. I also loved the visuals. My only complaint with An Unexpected Journey’s visuals was that the orcs looked totally different than they did in the LotR movies. Thankfully, the orcs (with the exception of that pale fellow and his chum) are back to their old menacing look and feel.

But TDoS does not impress in writing, acting, music, action sequences, or anything else.

Writing: If I had taken a drink every time there was a dramatic pause followed by some God-awful, stupid line, I might have given this review a higher score on account of being too inebriated to catch all the uninspired writing and nonsensical plot filler that littered the last half of the movie.

Acting: With how long this movie is, and with how much filler they squeezed in, it’s amazing to me that it never seemed like anyone had time to properly deliver a line of dialogue. Everything felt rushed. Questions bled into answers as if the characters knew what would be said before it was said. The emotions of the characters seemed either non-existent or so over the top that the viewer could not possibly relate.

Music: I didn’t notice it until the very end when I thought, “There’s music playing, isn’t there?” Any LotR fan knows this is a bad thing.

Action Sequences: These were my least favorite parts of the movie, and they took up about half of the time. I love a good action sequence when it’s done right. However, these are not. Half of the action was silly and cheesy, and the other half was boring (not quite half, actually, because I properly liked one bit of action: when that dwarf did a barrel roll, if you know what I mean). It was always predictable. “Predictable? That’s the nature of a prequel!” I hear you scream. Well then tell the writers to get the action over with fast so we can focus on, say, caring about the characters.

Anything Else: Smaug was stupid; he looked cliche-dragon, sounded cliche-deep-voice, and acted like an enemy in a bad action movie (coincidence???). The movie strayed far from the book. I mean, I’m not the sort to bad-mouth a movie because it’s different from the book, but I am one to bad-mouth a movie that ruins everything it touches in the book. Which in this case is everything.…Full Review »